


Mismatched Cutlery and How to Find Meaning in Your Life

by MajorMajor_MajorMajor



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Abuse, Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Abuse, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, ceasefire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorMajor_MajorMajor/pseuds/MajorMajor_MajorMajor
Summary: Life is real and daunting. Our lives are a culmination of every event in time that has led up until the present. Knowing this, how is it possible to live a happy one? The answer is repeated endlessly, everywhere, in different forms. This time in the form of nine mercenaries and a set of antique spoons.(Be prepared to be explore and be given insight into disturbing topics regarding various aspects of mental health.)





	Mismatched Cutlery and How to Find Meaning in Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The frustration of a medic being unable to heal himself is enough on its own, but combined with past emotional trauma and a tendency toward self-invalidation, this doctor's recovery is more than a matter of painkillers.

Medic looked out the window and sighed. It was going to be a terrible day. Of course, it was nearly nine thirty at night, but he recognized that being almost over has never stopped any day from still managing to be terrible.  
The pain in his right arm was acting up again, and his attempts at left-handed training had sent him into a frenzied frustration that left him desperately between hoping someone would see him and take pity, and hoping no one would ever know how of pathetic he was acting. He had known of people who trained themselves to be completely ambidextrous, to the point where the skill and finesse of their formerly-dominant hand was indistinguishable from that of their other. He had even witnessed a complete reversal in dominance in some of his patients who had lost limbs. Why couldn’t he do it himself? He’d been practicing for weeks with no improvement. This and the fact that he was, after all, some sort of doctor combined to form a burdening feeling of mockery whose oppressiveness was greater than the sum of their failure-comprised parts. He repeated the two pieces in his head as one chant, unable to combat them for reasons unknown: _it’s very possible and you can’t do it; you’re a medic and you can’t do it. It’s very possible and you_ —How was he not to feel that his life until this point was, in fact, the sum of a forty-eight-year string of failures?  
His face felt constricted and disgusting with the stripes of tear-made tracks drying up on his cheeks. He wished it was as much of a mask as it felt to be, but tears are transparent, and they show who you are instead of concealing it. _This is who you really are,_ Medic thought to himself. He knew that his injury was insignificant on a larger scale, but it wasn't about his arm. It was about his life. Everything. Him. Who he was as a person. ~~Her.~~ Though he realized that his scathing thoughts had become overly dramatic, the sensibility that usually reeled him in was absent at the time. The white walls of his lab stood indifferently surrounding him, as ready to serve as they always had been, showing interest only in cases of medical emergency. The sterile and stoic atmosphere of the room that had always invigorated him before now felt stifling and impersonal. It smelled like rubbing alcohol.  
Gradually the clock became louder. Its typically imperceptible tick started to morph into a thick and heavy _whack, whack, whack_ that made the voice in Medic’s head even less controllable. _Possible and you can’t; Medic and you can’t._ Punctuated by the gonging of the clock and encouraged by the passing of time, his chants dared further: _Possible and you have never. Possible and you will never. It’s nine forty-five and you’ve spent fifteen minutes being useless. It’s ten o’clock and you’ll spend forever being useless._ His fingers met the window and traced the outline of the house on the glass. The lights inside there first filled up the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway, then what was left over spilled out into the open night and meandered in every direction. The fact that some of it made it through the windows of the lab and into Medic’s eyes seemed insignificant.  
His arm fell to his side and he dragged himself to the door where he sat his hand on the handle and breathed deeply. He shouldn’t be leaving when he still must update three medical files—but would he be letting his team down more by leaving those unfinished or hiding away from them? He heard the voice of his friend advising him: _Clear and honest communication is what makes us a successful team. If we are not open about our feelings, we are divided, and we fall._ At this he first scoffed, then laughed out loud. A bystander might think he had cheered himself up, but no, the hilarity in this situation was the bitter irony. This advice had come from Spy. Spy, who emoted only to show disdain. Spy, whose feelings were so closely guarded that Pyro and Engineer once had to ask whether he was enjoying himself during a game of cribbage. Medic had to locate and steal Spy’s diary and translate it from a polygraphic cipher in Cantonese to figure out that he had symptoms of influenza. Perhaps a day would come when Medic took advice from a damn hypocrite, but it would not be today if he could help it. He released the door handle and tugged himself to his chair where he pulled out the files, sharpened a pencil, and slammed his head on the desk.


End file.
